


Desire and hatred are twins to me

by Myshipsank



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hate Sex, but is it?, others will appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-19 22:09:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3626085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myshipsank/pseuds/Myshipsank
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If love is weakness, where stands hate?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just like nicotine

“Love is weakness,” Lexa had told Clarke, her words rough, for the truth behind them was just as harsh. But Clarke wasn’t having it; she’d struggled through those words as she washed her hands yet again of the blood that no one else seemed to see but caused judgement to fall on her nonetheless. She struggled with those words when she looked at Lincoln train Octavia, watching how Octavia and Lincoln only seemed to grow stronger since falling in love with each other.

“The dead are gone, Clarke. The living are hungry,” Lexa had also told Clarke. This one Clarke understood more so. It was a difficult pill to swallow at first, that concerns for the dead were pointless and potentially a waste entirely. It seemed callous, but such was life, according to Lexa. What were the living hungry for though? More than just food and water, surely. Life was about more than just survival.

Clarke listened intently to the Grounder Commander, knowing that she must boast wisdom if she has managed to be such a successful leader. As such, Clarke battled with reconciling Lexa’s words of life with the events Clarke observed herself. Not able to find an easy solution to these statements, Clarke went to Lexa’s tent one evening, searching for answers.

The guard posted outside of the Commander’s tent allowed Clarke passage; she was a common visitor to many meetings of strategy and alliance talks and as such, it was not unusual for her to visit Lexa. When Clarke entered the tent, the first thing she noticed was that, aside from Lexa herself, the tent was empty. The second thing she noticed was that Lexa was still staring at the map of Mount Weather, like she often had been in recent times. She leaned against the table, both hands on top of it and upper body hovering over the map.

“Clarke. What brings you here?” Lexa asked, barely looking up from her map.

“I’ve been thinking about some things you’ve said to me,” Clarke replied. Lexa made a small hum of acknowledgement, still not looking up. Clarke took a few steps forward, hoping to garner Lexa’s full attention. Such was not the case, so Clarke let out a sigh and continued speaking regardless.

“You told me that love is weakness,” Clarke started. She needed Lexa to engage in this conversation. She wasn’t exactly sure why, but this conversation seemed too important to be brushed off.

Lexa’s eyes remained glued to the map. “If you are simply here to repeat my words back to me, Skai Prisa…” Lexa sighed.

Clarke’s eyes narrowed as she marched around to the other side of the table with the map on it such as to be in front of Lexa with the table separating them. “No, I’m here to tell you that I think you’re wrong.”

Finally, Lexa looked up and made eye contact. Her gaze was unreadable. “You accuse me of ignorance?” Lexa questioned.

Clarke bit her lip, suddenly realizing that it might not be the best idea to rag on the Commander’s wisdom when alone in a tent with her. Surely such words could be considered treason by some.

“Not exactly- more so that there’s something that it comes into conflict with,” Clarke amended her initial statement. “Something else you’ve said, actually,” she added quickly.

Lexa’s brow raised slightly at this. “Go on,” she prompted.

“Well, you also told me that the living are hungry. But the living are hungry for more than just food. The living are hungry for closeness, for affection,” Clarke explained. Lexa stood up, removing her hands from the table. Her attention was finally away from the map, away from the strategic planning that had been plaguing almost her every thought. Afraid that she might not get another moment of this type of full attention, Clarke hurriedly continued, “I understand that you say that love is weakness, but can you really live a life without any time of affection or intimacy?”

“No, you can not,” Lexa admitted. Clarke was about to ask how both statements could possibly be true then, but Lexa raised a hand to stop her from voicing her questions. “But intimacy must not always come from love.”

Clarke made a face. “So you’re suggesting, what, friends with benefits?” she scoffed.

Lexa’s face appeared confused at that. “I know not what that means, but I am not suggesting intimacy with a friend. That is still a relationship of love.”

Clarke was growing frustrated with Lexa’s inability to give a straight answer. “So then what are you saying?”

“Humans do have… needs,” Lexa paused, as if trying to be delicate. She stepped around the table toward Clarke, standing a couple paces away from her. “But satisfying these needs with someone you care for is too great a risk. I learned that the hard way, as you did as well.”

“So you’re saying you should just be with someone you don’t even know?” Clarke asked, surprised.

“Someone you don’t like would be better,” Lexa confirmed. Clarke was suddenly all too aware that she was alone with someone who could kill her in a moment and had about 300 reasons to. Maybe she shouldn’t have come here here tonight. Maybe she shouldn’t have thought too hard about what Lexa said about how to live this life.

But Lexa’s eyes weren’t hard. She took another step toward Clarke, hazel eyes boring into Clarke’s blue ones as if searching for an answer to some unasked question. Clarke swallowed, desperately wanting to take a step back but not wanting to appear afraid.

“Even someone you have reason to hate,” Lexa said, her voice lower in both pitch and volume as she took yet another step closer. Clarke could see every smudge in the dark makeup on Lexa’s face when she was this close.

“Right. So you don’t embrace any...” Clarke trailed off, distracted by just how close she was to the Commander at this point. They’d never been this close, and Clarke had never realized just how terrifyingly beautiful Lexa could be. Her stomach dropped when she watched Lexa’s tongue dart out to wet her lips. “Weakness,” Clarke finished her sentence barely above a whisper. Suddenly Clarke was wondering when it got so hot in this tent.

Lexa broke eye contact at this point, her eyes trailing down the length of Clarke’s body. It felt heavy, intense, and dirty. Lexa had just been speaking of hatred, but everything in the way she was looking at Clarke right now screamed desire.

“Lexa?” Clarke asked tentatively. She didn’t know what to say, but she couldn’t just stand there waiting as Lexa’s eyes burned into her, heating up the room even more.

“Yes?” Lexa returned, practically growling it, eyes still running up and down Clarke’s body. She was close enough to touch, and Clarke wasn’t sure she was going to be able to restrain herself from doing just that.

“Do you hate me for what I did to the people you sent to kill me and my friends at the drop ship?” Clarke asked, desperately grasping for words.

Lexa let out a low chuckle and Clarke felt a different type of fear, this time fearing not knowing what was going on inside the Commander’s head. She’d never heard Lexa laugh in any way before, and as lovely as the sound was, Clarke had never felt so nervous at a chuckle before.

“Do you hate me for what I did to Raven? Or any of your other people?” Lexa returned. Clarke watched as Lexa dragged her eyes back up to meet her gaze and partially regretted wanting Lexa’s eye contact. Now that she had it, she wasn’t sure she could handle it. Lexa’s eyes were no longer unreadable at all. No, Clarke could read their intentions loud and clear. “How could I not?” Lexa whispered, and Clarke wasn’t so sure if she was talking about hatred anymore.

Clarke wasn’t entirely sure who moved first, but they met somewhere in the middle with a fire that she had never felt anything like before in her life. It wasn’t a neat kiss; it was all warm moist lips and sharp teeth and probing tongues. Clarke couldn’t breathe; she was suffocating but she didn’t want air to fill her lungs. She was afraid if she pulled away, she’d never get to feel this feeling of drowning in Lexa ever again. Maybe Lexa would realize that this was a mistake, that they were really the worst people for each other.

But it was Lexa who ripped away first, dragging in a shaky breath. Clarke took note of the other girl’s eyes- blown, dark, and deadly. Clarke’s stomach dropped out once more as she realized that Lexa was not pulling back for anything more than the necessity of oxygen- no, Clarke was about to be devoured.

And she didn’t want anything less.

Lexa pushed Clarke back, slamming her into a pole holding the tent up. Clarke let out a gasp from both surprise and a little bit of pain, but Lexa took her open mouth as an invitation, pushing her tongue back into Clarke’s mouth with the same fervor as their first kiss. Clarke dully registered that she was probably going to have bruises after this experience if they kept up at this rate.

Clarke raised a hand to bury it in Lexa’s braids, pulling the Commander even closer, if at all possible. She involuntarily tugged on a handful of braids as Lexa bit down on Clarke’s lower lip. But Lexa moaned at the action, so Clarke repeated it, yanking a little harder, enough to make Lexa pull back. Clarke took the opportunity to kiss her way down Lexa’s neck, sucking her lips against her pulse point, teeth scraping skin in a delicious way.

“Yes,” Lexa hissed out. It was the first word they’d spoken since the air had exploded around them and they’d crashed into each other. Clarke vaguely wondered if the word served as an answer to the previous questions they’d been asking each other. If this was hate, then Clarke wasn’t so sure hate was all that bad. Hate was suffocating her again, pressing in from seemingly every angle, pushing and pulling at her inside and out. Hate was making Lexa whimper slightly as Clarke bit down harder on her neck, surely leaving a mark. Hate was Lexa’s hands sliding under Clarke’s shirt to explore the smooth skin below with confident fingers.

“Off,” Lexa commanded, pulling back from Clarke and gesturing to the latter’s shirt. Clarke wanted to complain about being ordered around, but she couldn’t, not when she desperately wanted to follow that command. It was stifling in this tent, and Clarke’s body needed to breathe.

Lexa’s eyes hurriedly drank in the sight of Clarke’s exposed skin before diving right back in, running her hands all over the newly-available expanses of pale flesh. It was like she was afraid that if she didn’t take it all in immediately, she’d miss something.

“You too,” Clarke managed to pull away from Lexa’s lips for a moment to huff, pulling on Lexa’s clothes. Why did she always have to wear so many layers? Lexa growled at the loss of contact but complied, clearly just as thrilled as Clarke had been about being ordered around. The two of them were far too headstrong, much too accustomed to having weight when it came to decision-making and orders. They just might tear each other apart.

Now that both of them were topless, they collided again, nails catching on skin, leaving trails behind them. Lexa’s hands found Clarke’s breasts and squeezed, drawing another moan from Clarke’s lips. Clarke retaliated by snaking an arm around to grab at Lexa’s ass, bringing a small yelp out of the Commander.

Clarke chuckled at the almighty leader of the Grounder’s 12 tribes yelping, which earned her a hard glare from Lexa. Not to be outdone, Lexa’s hands surged forward to yank on Clarke’s jeans, almost ripping the zipper in her attempt to remove them. Clarke assisted Lexa in removing them, tossing them to the side, hardly caring where the landed. She didn’t care about anything but making sure that Lexa’s hands stayed on her skin.

Lexa ran her hands down Clarke’s thighs almost gently, and Clarke wondered for the first time since they’d started this what exactly Lexa was thinking. Surely her words about sex being a separate phenomenon from caring still stood, but then what about the times that Lexa had saved her life? Were those simply strategic moves since Lexa doubted the ability of Kane or Abby to sustain an alliance?

As if sensing Clarke’s hesitation, Lexa changed her tactics, kissing a line of bruising fire down Clarke’s body. She paused between her breasts to suck a mark before continuing her assault down Clarke’s stomach, landing just above where Clarke desperately wanted her, now on her knees.

But now it was Lexa’s turn to hesitate. Clarke’s hands tangled in Lexa’s braids once more, but Lexa still did not move forward. Clarke groaned, “Fuck, Lexa… what are you waiting for?”

Lexa stayed frozen, not looking up. “Permission,” she replied evenly, as if she wasn’t inches away from Clarke’s bare center.

Clarke rolled her eyes so hard she was afraid they’d get stuck in the back of her head. “Now? You’re asking now, after getting me naked?” Clarke inquired, frustrated. She was confused as to what part of her actions had not indicated consent. She practically tore off Lexa’s clothes not too long ago. She was confused as to how Lexa, who had just been telling her of hate sex basically, was now ceasing all motions until she got the go-ahead. It seemed uncharacteristic, and maybe if Clarke wasn’t so fucking horny, she would have smiled at the thought.

But as it was, Clarke was aching with need. “Lexa, I swear to God, if you don’t finish what you started, I will find a way to finish you instead,” Clarke said through gritted teeth. At this, Lexa looked up and smirked at Clarke, making Clarke realize what she’d just said.

“I’m not at all opposed to that suggestion,” Lexa responded smugly. Clarke wanted to punch her, but her other needs outweighed her irritation.

Clarke was about to spit out another retort when Lexa surged forward and ran her tongue up the length of her slit instead. Clarke’s words died before leaving her mouth. She decided in that moment that she’d never had to speak again if it meant feeling that sensation again. Thankfully, Lexa seemed to be done mocking her, because she repeated the same motion, causing Clarke to let out a sinful moan as she lifted one leg to hook it around Lexa’s head.

-~-~-~

After they finished mercilessly attacking each other with mouths and fingers and skin, Lexa laid back, closing her eyes. They’d moved back to Lexa’s bedchambers after Lexa had brought Clarke to her climax for the first time of the evening. Clarke bit her lip, not entirely sure of what to do next. Sure, they’d just had sex, but it had been established beforehand that it was nothing more than fulfilling each other’s passions without any sort of affection.

So Clarke did the only thing should could think to do, which was begin to gather her clothes and get dressed while Lexa lay on the bed with her eyes closed. She finished dressing herself and was about to leave the tent when the sound of Lexa’s voice stopped her.

“Wait,” she called out softly. Clarke paused, not looking behind her in fear of seeing Lexa laying there naked once more. So she stood there with her back to the bed and awaited Lexa’s words. “You need not be ashamed of this, Clarke.”

Well, that was not at all what Clarke had been expecting to hear. “Right. It’s just sex,” Clarke replied, her voice feeling raspy and not at all her own. There was silence for a moment.

“Correct,” Lexa finally agreed. And with that, Clarke left the Commander’s tent to venture back to her own, hoping greatly that she didn’t run into anyone along the way who might ask her where she’d been. Regardless of Lexa reassure that there was nothing to be ashamed of, Clarke couldn’t help the weight that settled in her stomach that told her that something had changed now that she couldn’t escape.


	2. No sense of normalcy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clarke has way too many thoughts, Lexa keeps her thoughts to herself, and Octavia thinks Clarke is a whackjob. Oh, and Indra still thinks Clarke is stupid. All of their thoughts are probably valid.

CHAPTER 2

Clarke found herself watching the people around Tondc more than she probably should. She wasn’t in a crisis- no, she couldn’t be and was much too young- but she needed to see how other people managed to take all the pieces of information that life threw at them. She needed to watch how people put those pieces back together again.

She knows that she should have gone to talk to Lexa the day after they spent the evening together, but she just hasn’t been able to bring herself to do so. She felt nothing but emptiness and confusion when she tried to think about the implications of her actions with the Commander of the Grounders. She’d acted on impulse and now she felt dirty. It’s interesting how her hands felt dirty with the blood of Finn, but an act of intimacy left her feeling dirty as well. How could two acts so different leave her feeling the same? One, an act of hatred toward a boy she loved, and now, an act of affection with a girl she hated. It was all mixed up and Clarke wasn’t sure she could wrap her head around it.

“Watch it!” Indra growled as an arrow zinged past Clarke’s head. Startled, Clarke let out a mumbled stream of apologies. She had been lost in her thoughts again, causing her to walk right through a training area without noticing her own path. “Branwada…” Indra muttered audibly enough. Clarke wasn’t sure of the exact translation of that term, but she’d heard it used in reference to her enough times with disdained faces to know it was some sort of insult. 

Not wanting any further trouble, Clarke made her way toward to village instead. “Wait!” a voice called out from behind her. Clarke turned around to make eye contact with Octavia.

“Not now, Octavia,” Clarke sighed. She wasn’t really up for being made fun of for almost being skewed by an arrow or interrogated as to what the plan was for the attack on the Mountain.

“Hey, hold up,” Octavia persisted, reaching out to touch Clarke’s arm. She recoiled slightly from the touch involuntarily, feeling a hint of a bruise on the spot that Octavia had pressed against. “Wow, touchy much.”

“I’m really not in the mood,” Clarke restated more clearly this time, hoping that the girl would just leave her alone. She had much too much to process and no time to talk about the present when she was still so stuck in the past.

“I’m not here to rag on you, if that’s what you think,” Octavia clarified with a sincere voice. Clarke made eye contact, finding reassurance there. It stung a little, because Clarke didn’t really deserve the comfort of friendship that she found in Octavia’s easy demeanor. She couldn’t help but remember the look of betrayal when Octavia found out that Clarke had known about the missiles before they struck Tondc. That image was burned into her memory, just like all the other moments when Clarke had failed to live up to the best of humanity.

Clarke let out a deep breath, trying to force herself to relax. “Right, sorry. I’ve been wound up for a while, and being here isn’t really helping.”

“Well if you want to unwind a little, you should really talk to the Commander,” Octavia suggested. Clarke felt her breath catch in her throat, probably caught on her heart, which seemed to have jumped in there as well. Did she know?

“What do you mean by that?” Clarke asked, voice an octave above normal range. She hadn’t taken a breath yet.

Octavia looked at her like she’d just vomited everywhere instead of spoken words. She looked disturbed, like she wished she wasn’t there anymore. Well, that feeling was mutual for Clarke, who would rather be anywhere by surely turning pink in front of Octavia while talking about the Commander.

“God, you really are wound up tight,” Octavia replied with a scrunched up face. Clarke wanted to sink into the ground. “I was just saying that you should talk to her for reassurance about the plan or whatever. You never seem relaxed unless you have a mission or something.”

“Right- yeah, of course. I-I’ll get right on her,” Clarke nodded furiously before realizing what she’d said. “It! I’ll get right on it,” she corrected, making some odd flustered hand motions.

Octavia gave her a look of confused disdain before shaking her head and walking away, back to her training. As soon as she was gone, Clarke let out a low groan, shoving her hands into her hair. She was a hot mess and had to take care of this. It was just sex, and it was just one night. They weren’t any sort of “thing.” Octavia was right about one thing- Clarke needed to get her mind back on the plan, or else she might go insane.

\------

Clarke had taken Octavia’s advice and gone to see the Commander again for planning purposes. They’d talked over multiple options with Indra, going through each one painfully in detail, listing pros and cons, talking about logistics. Clarke felt alive at the start, getting down and dirty with a real mission, but the allure quickly wore off when Indra scoffed at almost everything Clarke brought up. Lexa barely said a word throughout the whole thing, speaking only a few times to raise faults in one of Clarke’s ideas, and it was pissing Clarke off. Sometimes they would eye contact in one of these moments when Indra was berating Clarke’s ability to lead her people or manage a plan, and that eye contact Clarke would feel something in the pit of her stomach that reminded her of hatred, but it settled a little lower.

Finally, after a couple hours of going over multiple avenues of rescuing their people from Mount Weather, Indra called it a night, saying that she must return to her home for the evening. Now alone, Clarke whirled on Lexa.

“What was that all about?” Clarke snarled. Every moment of silence that Lexa had given Clarke in their little meeting had been building up this rage inside of Clarke, and it was about to explode. Every moment of heated eye contact was leading to this moment.

“What are you talking about, Clarke?” Lexa asked calmly. Was she not feeling this intense heat that was threatening to eat Clarke alive? Surely she was; those moments of held eye contact were not one-sided.

Clarke stepped forward, ignoring the alarm bells going off somewhere in her head telling her that this was surely a mistake. “You and Indra just shot down every single idea I threw out for the past two hours.” Clarke wondered why Lexa’s tent retained this much heat. God, she needed some air desperately, but not yet. Not until she told Lexa off. She was tired of no one taking her seriously- not Octavia, not Indra, not her own mother, and not Lexa.

“I did not create flaws, but simply pointed them out,” Lexa replied. How was she so cool and collected right now? It only served to irritate Clarke further, but then again, every detail about the Commander was irritating her right now. Then way her smoky kohl around her eyes was smudged on her nose the smallest bit? Irritating. The way her cold eyes reflected no emotion? Irritating? The way her collarbone poked out from under her shirt? Irritating.

“Couldn’t you have listened farther than a few words of each of my plans? Do you have any faith in my abilities as a leader at all?” Clarke asked. Lexa’s eyes flashed with something that she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t quite anger, which Clarke had seen before, but it wasn’t anything else that she could classify.

“The only way one leader can respect another is to listen and point out flaws in the other’s plan so both may become better at leading their people. Shall I allow you to make basic mistakes and fail?” Lexa responded. Clarke didn’t even know what to say at this point, letting out a sort of growl of frustration instead, turning away from the brunette warrior.

Clarke knew she might look a little childish by turning away from Lexa just as she was saying something rational, but she couldn’t help herself. The one thing that was keeping her going was knowing that she was making the right choices for her people. With that, she could live with Finn’s blood on her hands. She could live with hundreds of Grounders’ blood soaking her to the core. She could live with slowly losing her humanity so she could preserve her people’s lives.

Clarke felt a hand on her shoulder and she spun around so fast that she almost fell over. Clarke couldn’t look Lexa in the eye, so she just blindly shoved, trying to get the Commander as far away from her as possible. Rationally, Clarke knew she was starting to panic, but she couldn’t let that happen. Not here, not now. She had a job to do, and Lexa was the last person she should be falling apart in front of.

“Clarke. You are better than this,” Lexa said softly. Clarke looked up at that, her panic turning more to fire inside of her. Her rage was back.

“No. You don’t get to tell me what I am. You know nothing about me,” Clarke growled.

“I know that you have a leading spirit inside of you, and I know that-” Lexa started, but Clarke didn’t let her finish.

She surged forward, wrapping her hands around Lexa’s neck, causing the Commander’s eyes to widen. Clarke was intending on strangling her, maybe just for a moment, but somehow she ended up way too close to Lexa’s face, and Clarke couldn’t stand it anymore. Her gaze flicked down to that exposed collarbone again, and that feeling in her stomach dropped again. Before she knew it, she was kissing Lexa, hands slipping down from her neck to those irritating collarbones.

“I-” Clarke breathed out between harsh kisses, “hate-” another quick, stolen breath, “you-” and again “so much.”

Lexa just groaned, pulling Clarke back to her, hands sliding up her top to pull it off. Clarke wondered if Lexa had the ability to light skin aflame, because this feeling was just like the last time they’d kissed. Her hands left behind trails of fire on Clarke’s skin, and she couldn’t get enough of it.

Clarke was trying to get Lexa’s shirt off, but before she could manage, Lexa’s hand was down her pants. Clarke let out a gasp- clearly, Lexa wasn’t planning on wasting any time. Before Clarke could even process how they’d gone from arguing to sex yet again, Lexa’s fingers were inside of her, curling at just the right angle to draw a strangled growl from her throat.

“Now that type of growl is much preferable to the one from your outburst earlier, wouldn’t you say?” Lexa taunted. Clarke opened her mouth to make a sharp retort, but was met with Lexa’s warm tongue inside her mouth instead. 

Was she going crazy? Was this actually happening, or was this some sort of twisted dream sparked from her last encounter with the infuriating Commander? Sure, the sex had been good, great even, but they couldn’t just do this. They couldn’t just argue and escalate so much that they fucked each other. That’s not how normal people dealt with their issues.

But there Clarke was, moving with each thrust of Lexa’s fingers, getting closer and closer to a release. She managed to open her eyes to catch a glimpse of what Lexa looked like when she was in the middle of this moment: her facial expression was intense and focused, and she was biting her lip, intently staring at Clarke’s face.

Noticing Clarke’s opened eyes, Lexa quickly looked down at her hand instead, choosing to focus on that. But Clarke couldn’t stop thinking of how Lexa looked when she was intent on nothing but bringing her to orgasm.

It was at this point that Clarke realized that they were both still wearing almost all of their clothes. She moved yet again to pull of Lexa’s top, but the other girl shifted away at the contact, instead moving herself down Clarke’s body and yanking her pants down in one motion.

Clarke threw her head back, suddenly a lot more concerned with how Lexa’s tongue was talented at a lot more than political speak.

\-----

Lexa didn’t let Clarke reciprocate this time. She was fine with that to a certain extent, but it was moreso the look in her eyes she would get every time Clarke would try. It was like she was setting up some sort of a boundary, and Clarke wasn’t sure why. It’s not like they were even friends, so she had no reason to ask, but her curiosity remained.

After Lexa brought Clarke over the edge for the third time, Lexa pulled back and grabbed Clarke’s shirt, tossing it to her without looking at her. “You should leave now,” was the accompanying murmur.

“Okay,” Clarke said, suddenly feeling dirty again. It’s almost funny- she should have known this feeling was going to come. It had the last time, so why wouldn’t it now? She’d had sex with someone she hated again, and now she was tossed her clothes like it was nothing.

She pulled her shirt on and pushed her hair out of her face, looking around the tent for anything else of hers that might have been lost in the heat of the moment. Ah, there was her left shoe. Tugging it on, she took note of Lexa’s reaction to all of this. She had her back to Clarke and was looking down at that goddamn stupid map again.

“Hey,” Clarke said, not entirely sure why she’d opened her mouth after hearing the word leave it.

Lexa didn’t turn around. What a surprise.

“Normal people don’t do this,” Clarke said instead of every other thing she could have. Anything else probably would have been better.

“Well, we’re not normal, are we?” Lexa replied, sounding tired and exasperated. Clarke bit her lip, not knowing how to reply to that. It was true, they were both important leaders with heavy decisions resting on their shoulders, some of which came hand in hand with even heavier regret.

“No,” Clarke said simply, because it was true. They weren’t normal, but that didn’t explain why Clarke couldn’t rip the memory of Lexa’s mouth out of her head.


	3. Detonation realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clarke can't believe how badly she's falling apart... until she falls further.

CHAPTER 3

The plans for the attack on Mount Weather were coming together now. Bellamy was surely inside the mountain by now, but they had not heard from him. As soon as they received word that the gas was turned off, they could attack. Without that defense, the mountain would surely fall with the strength of Lexa’s army and the technology the Sky People brought along.

Clarke was satisfied with the plan, but not with this process of waiting she was stuck in now. Over the past two weeks, she had done her best to avoid any sort of contact with the Commander. She limited their time together to large groups, like when the topmost leaders of Lexa’s army met for final details about battle formations and communication plans for the siege of the mountain. Now that these meetings were becoming less and less about creativity of planning and more and more about things that Clarke did not understand (how much rations to bring, who should scout the area, how many warriors should be on horseback) she was at a loss for how to keep busy. She started attending less and less of these meetings, instead choosing to spend her time by the nearby lake, contemplating what sort of a twisted situation she was in.

She had slept with Lexa. It wasn’t even just a one time mistake- she’d fallen into it twice now. She had initiated the contact for sure this time; she couldn’t even fool herself into thinking that maybe Lexa had come on to her. No- Clarke had grabbed hold of her throat and pulled her forward for a searing kiss, and from that moment, she couldn’t let go. Clarke wasn’t sure what it was about kissing someone that she had such hatred for that made it so much like a drug. In her head, she knew it was the worst possible idea, regardless of Lexa’s speech about how it was best to deal with your passions with someone you didn’t even like. Clarke disagreed. Physical affection was supposed to come from real emotional affection. But worse than that, she’d had sex with the woman who had ordered Finn’s death. It was sick. She wondered what Finn would say if he was alive to see it, to see her literally sleeping with the enemy now.

Not that they were currently enemies. They were allies in the most removed and temporary sense, of that Clarke was sure. No one was really happy about the arrangement, except for Lincoln and Octavia perhaps. It certainly made their love affair a lot easier with their respective peoples no long constantly trying to (and succeeding) kill each other.

Somewhere in the middle of the two weeks since Clarke’s last indiscretion with the Commander, she’d returned to the Ark. She needed to get away, and the Ark provided a great excuse for that.

“Hey, Clarke, your mom is looking for you,” Raven called out. Clarke gave her a nod of acknowledgement. So the two of them weren’t exactly close again, but they were civil now. Raven no longer actively attempted to sabotage Clarke’s existence, and Clarke was no longer afraid to look her in the eye. The weight of Finn’s death still hung between them, but they were getting better at ignoring it.

Instead of going to the infirmary where she knew her mother would be waiting for her, Clarke found herself walking to the gate. The guy guarding it let her through without a word. Clarke wondered if that’s what leadership was like- people doing what you wanted but not really talking to you. It seemed lonelier than she had imagined.

-~-~-~-~  
Once she was out of the gate, Clarke walked into the woods, searching for something. She stopped once she was completely surrounded by trees so tall and dense that she couldn’t see their tops clearly, and she did a slow circle. This was the Earth that she had dreamt about every night since her father told her stories about it before bed, that she had drawn over and over, that her father had died never seeing. She remembered the delinquents’ reactions when they’d first landed on the dropship. She remembered Octavia’s excited exclamation about how, “We’re back, bitches!” Clarke’s heart hurt a little at how much they’d all changed since then.

Octavia was growing up into a warrior with a hardened view of life. Gone was that immature girl who had rarely interacted with other people. Jasper and Monty were no longer full of pure optimism and excitement over making their homemade alcohol. No, they were stuck in the Mountain still, trying to stay alive. And then there was Clarke herself.

She had lost her fascination with the beauty of the earth surrounding her. It was replaced by a dull weight of anxiety and fatigue, always waiting for the next disaster, and trying to plan for how to react. Clarke briefly wondered if Lexa felt this same dull weight or if she was simply accustomed to it by now.

Clarke heard Raven yelling her name, and she knew it was time. Bellamy had contacted them, and duty was calling her. She could wonder about the enigma of a Commander later.

-~-~-~-~

Clarke found herself running through the woods faster than she ever thought possible. She trips a few times, surely leaving scrapes and bruises, but she doesn’t care. Bellamy had contacted them at last, yes, but it was a bitter moment nonetheless: her and Raven overheard Cage making plans to launch a missile at Tondc. Clarke had to get there to warn Lexa as soon as possible in the hopes that the village could be evacuated and lives could be saved. Maybe Clarke could finally have a moment of saving lives instead of ending them like she usually did. Maybe being a leader didn’t have to just be a tally of lives lost, but also of lives saved.

When the village was finally in sight, Clarke slowed her pace to a brisk walk. She didn’t want to alarm the villagers, after all. There should be an orderly evacuation, not a panic-driven crowd of people scrambling for safety. So Clarke brushed off Octavia’s questioning concern and kept her eyes down until she could get inside Lexa’s tent.

“We need to get you out of here,” Clarke said after explaining the situation the the Commander. “We need to evacuate.”

Lexa wasn’t moving. Clarke wanted to shake her into action. Didn’t she want to save her people? Surely she wanted to see her people’s lives saved more than anything. Clarke knew in the back of her mind why Lexa wasn’t immediately jumping into action, but she didn’t want to say it out loud. She had thought of it before, of course, but she had hoped that Lexa would overlook that detail if it meant saving her village, saving her people.

“We can not evacuate. Has Bellamy succeeded in his mission yet?” Lexa inquired. Clarke bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

“We will lose this village. People will die- children too.” Clarke didn’t know if she was trying to convince herself or Lexa anymore.

“And we will lose every person locked up in that mountain unless we keep our inside man a secret.” Clarke hated that she was right. She hated it and wanted to scream at the universe for not being fair. Of course she wouldn’t be allowed a decision that would result in lives saved instead of lost. No, life didn’t work that way.

Clarke fumed inside her head as Lexa led her out the back way and the two of them snuck out of the village into the safety of the woods. She knew the decision wasn’t really up to her- it was Lexa’s people, not hers at risk- but she was hoping that Lexa would make the decision that Clarke never could, allowing the village to be saved. It was childish perhaps, but Clarke had her childhood taken away from her before it was over. She was forced to grow up fast, just like everyone else on the Ark, maybe even faster after learning the terrible secret that her father had died trying to expose.

So Clarke tried to stop the tears from falling down her face, but she couldn’t, for there were not simply of sadness. No, they were tears of utter frustration and loss and helplessness. 

Lexa must have noticed, because she looked away, giving Clarke some privacy, but not before saying, “We will save them… your people in the mountain.”

Clarke didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t want anything that could be construed as comfort from this woman she hardly knew anything but hatred for. She wanted nothing more than to run into the village in front of her and scream for the inhabitants to run. Octavia was down there. Lincoln was down there. Hundreds of others.

But no, Clarke didn’t say a word as she watched the missile crash into Tondc, plucking the life right out of it. Clarke felt the reverberations echo through the ground and up into her body, sinking into her heart. The waves were caught there, shaking her to the core. At long last, Clarke met Lexa’s eyes, noticing a hint of a glisten there. Had the Commander shed a tear? Clarke could not imagine such a thing- the woman seemed heartless at almost every turn.

Except when she told Clarke about her dead lover Costia. Or when she accepted hugs from one of the children in Tondc. Or when she explained some of the customs of the Grounders to Clarke. In those moments, Clarke saw the humanity in her. It would be easier if those moments didn’t exist, if Clarke could see Lexa as just the soulless leader of a people she had a reluctant alliance with. But the theme recently was that the universe wasn’t fair.

So Clarke wiped away her tears and cleared her throat, causing Lexa to look at her. The two of them looked to each other, perhaps for one last bit of something resembling peace before they would have to return to the wreckage, the completely decimated village below. They didn’t want it this way, but in this moment, they suddenly were all each other really had.

-~-~-~-~

Clarke had never seen this type of destruction before. On the Ark, disasters were typically limited to a dozen people or so, usually people working on fixing a detrimental issue to the Ark’s structure. Then, since arriving to Earth, her idea or destruction had expanded and was redefined entirely. She saw what the beginnings of war could look like. She witnessed death firsthand multiple times. She took part in an execution. She blew up probably hundreds of Grounders back at the drop ship when they charged it in an attack. But nothing, nothing, prepared her for what was waiting for her back at Tondc.

There were dead bodies everywhere, in varying states of disassembly. Some were most likely rendered unrecognizable at this point. There were small fires scattered all around. Tents and buildings were crumpled to the ground. Survivors were moaning on the ground in pain while others in somewhat better states attempted to tend to their injuries. Clarke could barely breathe, but now wasn’t the time to panic. She didn’t have time for that, not when there were some lives left here for her to save. People were stuck under the rubble surely, and she had to do everything she could to salvage this utter mess she’d made. But the display in front of her was threatening to suffocate her with the sheer intensity of loss.

Clarke started when she felt Lexa lightly lay a hand on her arm. “We must help them,” she said plainly, and Clarke’s breath was taken away yet again, but not from loss this time. No, Lexa took her breath away from the pure dedication she had to her people. The fire in her eyes… it was uncomparable.

So Clarke stood up a little straighter and scanned the area for who she could help first. If Lexa could do this, she could too. They owed it to these people whose lives they had put at risk by not coming forth about the knowledge of the missile. It might have been for the better of the greater good, to save more lives, but that didn’t mean Lexa and Clarke didn’t owe a debt to every person in the village at the time the impact.

-~-~-~-~

Clarke had never felt a stronger bond before in her life as the bond created by a shared secret. The first time she’d felt it was with her father and their secret plan to expose the Ark’s impending failure. After that, she’d shared several secrets with Bellamy, and their bond had deepened significantly. And now? Now she and Lexa shared a secret, one that neither wanted to bear. Clarke feared how that weight they shouldered together would affect their interactions.

Clarke knew that she had to stay in Tondc for a while in order to ensure the alliance was solid before their big strike. This meant that she still had to interact with Lexa, but Clarke wasn’t exactly sure how that was supposed to work. She could hardly make eye contact with Lexa after the first time they’d slept together, but now that they had this hidden transgression shared between them, Clarke couldn’t stand to be around Lexa even if they weren’t interacting directly. Clarke was so terrified that if she looked at Lexa she would see a reminder of every Grounder that had died because of the missile strike that she’d kept a secret. For Clarke, Lexa was surrounded by ghosts.

“We should adjourn for today. There’s not much point in continuing this speculation until we hear something concrete from Bellamy about progress with the fog deactivation,” Indra stated. Clarke snapped back to reality, looking up at Indra. Mistake. She was standing right next to the Commander, or course, and Lexa caught Clarke’s eye for a fraction of a second. That brief moment made Clarke start to feel somewhat nauseous with guilt. She couldn’t read Lexa’s expression in that moment, but it didn’t matter. Clarke turned away and marched out of the tent as quickly as she could, but not before passing by a suspicious Octavia.

“Everything alright?” Octavia asked.

“Yeah, just not feeling the best,” Clarke responded without stopping her retreat from the meeting. Clarke could feel Octavia’s eyes on her back the whole way out.

Octavia knew that there was something going on with Lexa and Clarke, but Clarke wondered just how far her suspicions had grown. Did she suspect that the two of them knew about the missile? Did she suspect that they held other, more personal, secrets?

Clarke kept walking until she reached that statue of the seated man that marked the edge of Tondc. She leaned her back against the cool marble, trying to calm herself down. This was her life now- shared secrets and haunting memories- and it wasn’t new to her. She’d felt like this since she dug that knife into Finn’s flesh and watched the life drain from his eyes and blood from his stomach. She’d felt it even before that, watching her father get sucked out into the deadly cold emptiness of space as he was floated. She had tried to keep these thoughts of death buried deep inside, but with this missile attack, she was afraid that the amount of blood on her hands had grown to the level that it could drown her.

“Clarke,” Lexa’s voice washed over her like a wave of cold water, somewhat startling but also refreshing. 

“What have we done?” Clarke croaked out. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say anymore. How was she supposed to focus on leading her people when she couldn’t even make it through a single meeting without breaking down with guilt?

“What we must,” Lexa said in a weary voice. She leaned in closer, hesitating just in front of Clarke’s face, probably trying to judge if Clarke was going to pass out or something.

But then Lexa surprised her, connecting their lips in a soft way that they’d never experienced together before. This kiss wasn’t looking to remove clothing. This kiss wasn’t asking for a repeat of past events of angry fucking in hushed spaces. This kiss wasn’t asking for anything at all. It was just giving; it was giving each other the solace that they needed that only they could give each other. In this moment, they were at a sort of tenuous peace with one another and the world around them that they couldn’t change.

Clarke pulled away after a minute or so of gentle movements of lips. “I… I have to go,” she stuttered. Lexa didn’t say anything, and Clarke left, feeling every bit as confused and scared as before their kiss.

Apparently, her descent into madness was just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this got rather angsty. I mean, it is a story about hate sex, so it was bound to get angsty, but I usually find a way to insert some sort of light moment or humor. Blame the CW for creating characters that angst so well. I guess it has taken me like a month to post a chapter, but it should probably be less than that til the next one because I'm home now.
> 
> Let me know if I should keep this going :)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just something that I thought of when I was watching the dynamic unfold between Lexa and Clarke midway through season 2. I've expanded it into a multi-chapter phenomenon, so let me know what you think.


End file.
